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Acquired from the estate of the artistThe collection of Tom Jacobson, San Diego

Catalogue Essay

Eugene Hutchinson was portrait and commercial photographer who, like his contemporary Edward Steichen, used the new language of modernism in the early days of advertising. George Hurrell, who was Hutchinson’s assistant in the early 1920s, would later recall that he spent “two years with that genius from Chicago.” Around the time Hutchinson created Top Hats, circa 1930 for Sears Roebuck, he was still based in Chicago but in the process of moving his commercial studio from Chicago to the same building in New York City as Steichen. Top Hats was a celebrated image in its day: mentioned in a 1934 Vanity Fair article on commercial photography and illustrated as a prime example of the "new art form." This is believed to be one of only two known prints of this image.